(Source Oregonian)
Preliminary results are in from the 2008 General Social Survey (GSS), the gold standard for social science research, which asks about trust in the following institutions: the military, the scientific community, medicine, the Supreme Court, education, organized religion, banks/financial institutions, major companies, organized labor, the Executive Branch, Congress, television, and the press.
Since 1976, trust in all these institutions (other than the military) has declined, many of them markedly. And since 2000, trust is down for all except the military and education. Note: the polling was done prior to the financial crisis, which presumably has lowered trust in banks/financial institutions further, but nonetheless, trust in banks and financial institutions was cut by more than half from 1976 to 2008.
Trust in government which was around 75% in 1960 has plummeted, with the Executive Branch and Congress only having the trust of roughly one in 8 or 10 Americans, and the Supreme Court a bit more trusted (with roughly 1 in 3 Americans trusting it).
Scary to see that trust in TV and press suffered most!
Would be very interesting to contrast this with the development of trust/confidence in peers – I bet there is a reverse trend going on there via social networks.